^ On
a 15 December:2008 The members of the electoral
college chosen by popular vote on 04 November 2008 meet in each state
to elect (by 365 votes out of 538) the Democrats Barack Hussein Obama II
[04 Aug 1961~] President of the US and Senator Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.
[20 Nov 1942~] Vice-President of the US, for a four-year term starting on
20 January 2009, after both Houses of Congress certify the college's vote
on 08 January 2009. —(081129)2005 Parliamentary
elections in Iraq. — (051214)2004 In Tennessee,
early in the day, Robert Bell and Patrick C. Elswood rob a supermarket at
gunpoint, then steal a Ford Bronco and flee from pursuing police into Athens.
The Bronco runs into a fence and strikes a parked car. The two jump out
of the car and start running away as a policeman gets out of his new patrol
car (put into service just a week earlier) to chase them on foot. Ellswood
tries to attack the policeman, who zaps him with a stun gun and arrests
him. Meanwhile Bell gets into the police car, whose engine is still running,
and speeds off, and then into a ditch, causing $3200 of damage to the car.
Then he breaks into a woman's home and falls asleep on her couch, reeking
of alcohol. Bell is arrested after the woman phones the police. The two
lawbreakers are charged with armed robbery, evading arrest, theft, criminal
impersonation, unlawful possession of a weapon, and several other crimes
(driving without a license? speeding? failure to stop at a stop sign? driving
while under the influence of alcohol? leaving the scene of an accident?).2002 Election to the 182-seat state assembly of Gujarat,
India. The anti-Muslim Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which
also leads the national coalition government, wins 126 seats, the Congress
Party 51. Gujarat, whose population is 55 million, has 5 million Muslims.
2002 The United Nations High Commission for Refugees
distributes clothes and footwear in makeshift shelter and tent camps along
the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to refugees from the four-year drought in
Afghanistan, more than from the past fighting. Among the nearly 100'000
persons living in four camps at Spin Boldak, Afghanistan, 41 children have
died in the first two weeks of December 2002, from the cold aggravating
their malaria, tuberculosis, and, mostly, pneumonia, according to press
reports. Winter temperatures in the area often fall to –10ºC.
Afghanistan has an estimated 700'000 internal refugees.

2001 European Union plans reform
discussions.
The 15 European
Union leaders endorse a plan aimed at making the EU more manageable
and democratic after a dozen new nations join it in the years ahead.
They name former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing to lead
a debate to solidify reform proposals that will be put to a vote in
2004. The discussions will include more than 100 representatives of
governments, the European Parliament, national legislatures and the
12 nations due to join the EU as it expands eastward.
Central to the debate  which starts on 01 March 2001 and is
expected to last well into 2003  is whether the EU should have
strong federal powers or if it should be an economic club with a limited
political agenda. In a declaration on this the final day of their
summit, the leaders pledge to seek a common ground between those two
positions and pursue reform of cumbersome decision-making rules they
said must be revamped soon.
The EU rules date back to the 1950s, when there were six members.
An EU with nearly 30 members is bound to be beset by bureaucratic
gridlock unless there is an overhaul. The leaders draft a declaration
saying that 10 nations  Slovenia, Hungary, Estonia, Malta, Cyprus,
the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Latvia and Lithuania - should
be able to join on 01 January 2004 after parliamentary approval.
Officials were also set to declare
the Union's planned rapid-reaction corps operational, giving themselves
a military arm for peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. The EU
eventually wants to be able to field a force of up to 60'000 soldiers,
and specific military units in EU nations have been designated to
take part. NATO would make available planning, communications, intelligence
and transport facilities. In
a Future Of The European Union declaration, the leaders praise
European integration and the peace and prosperity it has brought,
but stress that reforms are e imperative. In the past decade, EU governments
have consistently failed to agree on durable reforms amid reservations
 especially in Britain, France, Denmark and Sweden  about
giving the EU more decision-making powers at the expense of national
governments. The declaration
suggests several ways that the EU could be made more effective:
 More majority voting to accelerate decision-making. Unanimity
is still the rule in many areas.  Endowing the EU with
a constitution and a bill of rights. France and Germany back that,
but not Britain, Denmark or Sweden.  More power for the
EU executive Commission and the European Parliament, which now have
only a limited say in many key areas.
On the first day of the summit, the previous day, the leaders urged
Israel to resume contacts with Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority,
saying he was the legitimate representative of the Palestinians. They
also said Arafat must dismantle "the terrorist networks" of the Islamic
militant groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. EU nations also promised
to send peacekeepers to Afghanistan as part of the British-led international
force to provide security in Kabul as the new interim Afghan government
takes power.  What
the European Union is.

2001 The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens to visitors (no
more than 30 at a time), after being closed since 1990, while its tilt was
being reduced from 4.50 meters to 4.09 meters.

2000 Chernobyl Nuclear Power
Plant shut down for good
Operators shut down the Chernobyl nuclear power plant with the flip
of a switch, closing the facility for good 14 years after it spawned
the world's worst nuclear accident. The simple procedure ended the
long, troubled run of a facility that became a synonym for nuclear
fears and the dangers of atomic power. Ukraine President Leonid Kuchma
gave the shutdown order from Kiev over a video linkup with the plant,
located some 135 km away. To fulfill the state decision and
Ukraine's international obligations, I hereby order to start work
for the premature stoppage of the operation of reactor No. 3 at the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant," Kuchma said.
At 13:16, Chernobyl shift chief Oleksandr Yelchishchev turned the
black AZ switch, activating the automatic safety system of the plant's
only working reactor and sending containment rods sliding into the
reactor core. Within seconds, a dial showed the reactor's output dropping
to zero. The procedure went flawlessly, the plant reported. The shutdown,
which followed years of intense international pressure, should erase
the danger of future accidents at the plant. Yet Ukraine will suffer
the effects of the 1986 Chernobyl accident for years to come: Millions
of its citizens are affected by radiation-related ailments.
The plant's last reactor, the one shut
down Friday, was reactor No. 3. It is located in the same building
as reactor No. 4, which exploded and caught fire on 26 April 1986,
contaminating vast areas of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus and spewing
a radioactive cloud over Europe. The Kremlin tried to conceal the
accident and delayed evacuation of people from nearby towns for days.
Firefighters and other workers who were the first at the destroyed
reactor had little or no protection from radiation. Those moves only
added to the death toll: More than 4000 cleanup workers have died
since and 70'000 have been disabled by radiation in Ukraine alone.
About 3.4 million of Ukraine's 50 million persons, including some
1.26 million children, are considered affected by Chernobyl.
Since the accident, the plant has experienced
numerous malfunctions. Many Ukrainians, tired of living with radiation
scares, were relieved at its closure. For others, though, the shutdown
means lost electricity and lost jobs. Thousands from among the plant's
6000 workers will be laid off.
For years, energy-strapped Ukraine faced pressure from environmental
groups and foreign leaders to close Chernobyl. But it refused to do
so, citing the electricity the plant provided and demanding foreign
aid in return. Kuchma finally pledged to shut down Chernobyl during
a visit by President Clinton earlier this year.
The European Commission has approved a $585 million loan to help Ukraine
build two new reactors to make up for Chernobyl's electricity. The
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is to chip in another
$215 million. Despite the closure, much remains to be done at Chernobyl.
Ukraine plans to construct a new casing for the mammoth concrete and
steel sarcophagus covering the ruined reactor No. 4. There is no decision
yet on what to do with the tons of radioactive dust and nuclear fuel
still inside, and work on making the structure environmentally safe
will take decades. It also will take years to unload nuclear fuel
from the three other Chernobyl reactors.

2000 US Federal regulators ordered an overhaul of California's
electricity market in a push to control skyrocketing prices and curtail
supply shortages. 2000 US First Lady and Senator-elect
Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed to an $8 million book deal with publisher
Simon and Schuster for her White House memoirs.

2000 School for dictators, torturers and assassins to change name.
The "School of the Americas", in Fort Benning, Georgia,
a US army facility critics have labeled a school for dictators, torturers
and assassins is being closed today under that name, to reopen on
17 January 2001 as the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation.”.
The list of graduates from the School
of the Americas is a who’s who of Latin American despots. Students
have included Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo
Galtieri of Argentina, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. Other graduates
cut a swath through El Salvador during its civil war, being involved
in the 1980 assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the El Mozote
massacre in which 900 peasants were killed, and the 1989 murders of
six Jesuit priests.  MORE

2000 Reuters reports that in Turkey there is for sale for
$159 phone that purports to detect lies on the basis of changes in sound
frequency. A light signals Red: lie, Yellow: dubious, Green: true. If the
device proves effective, its importation to the US is sure to be opposed
by a coalition of politicians, telemarketers, and wayward husbands.

2000 Yes, Virginia... cover
your ears! The
news comes out that, at Long Buckby school in Northamptonshire, central
England, Anglican vicar Clive Evans asked more than 200 schoolchildren,
aged 7 to 11, whether they believed in Father Christmas and then warned
them to put their hands over their ears if they didn't want to hear
what he was going to say. He then whispered: "There is no Father Christmas.
 His eight-year-old son Simon was among the children. After
parents complained, Evans said: "I am very sorry if any child is upset,
but I find it hard to believe that what I said really came as news
to anyone at the school.  The school's headteacher sent out
a letter of apology.

^1999 Child murderers to stay in prison.
Judge refuses to release killers of
5-year-old boy (Chicago
Tribune) A judge today ruled that two youths that were convicted
of dropping a 5-year-old boy to his death from a public housing high-rise
should remain in prison, despite a recent Illinois Supreme Court decision
that struck down a state statute allowing juveniles as young as 10
to be put behind bars. Cook County Juvenile Court Judge Carol Kelly
agreed with prosecutors that a prior law -- adopted in 1973 -- allows
courts to transfer convicts irrespective of their age to the Illinois
Department of Corrections. The two youths in this case are both 16.
Attorneys for the juveniles, who were 10 and 11 when they dropped
Eric Morse from a 14th-floor window on 13 October 1994 because he
wouldn't steal candy for them, filed motions in Cook County Juvenile
Court last week arguing that the youths are illegally incarcerated
because the law that sent them to prison was declared unconstitutional.
The 1994 Safe Neighborhoods
Act included a provision, passed in reaction to the Eric Morse murder,
that explicitly allowed juveniles 10 and older to be sent to a youth
prison rather than a less-secure residential treatment center operated
by the state's child welfare agency. The court ruled that the law
was unconstitutional because lawmakers attached unrelated pieces of
legislation to it. Herschella Conyers, an attorney for one of the
youths, nicknamed Tony, said before the hearing that if he were released,
he could either be sent home to his family or transferred to a residential
treatment facility, where he could be released as early as a year
from now or held until his 21st birthday. The boy should not
be incarcerated," Conyers said. The state has no legal basis
for continuing to hold this child in juvenile prison.  The fate
of the second youth, 16-year-old Jessie Rankins, was more clouded
because Rankins pleaded guilty in June in adult court to sexually
assaulting another inmate and was given a 9-year sentence. His prosecution
in adult court led to his public identification. David Hirschboeck,
a Cook County public defender who represents Rankins, argued in court
that Rankins should be released from youth prison because of the Supreme
Court's decision. But he said that Rankins would in all likelihood
remain in prison to serve out his 9-year sentence.

^
1998 Disney executive testifies that Microsoft pressured the company At Microsoft's high-profile
antitrust trial, a Walt Disney executive said that Disney received
an online link in Windows only after the company agreed to create
content that could be viewed solely by Internet Explorer users. The
agreement required Disney to scrap a previous deal with Netscape.
Microsoft had been accused of unfairly exploiting its dominance in
the operating system market in order to gain an advantage over other
Internet browser products.

1996 Boeing Co. announced plans to pay $13.3 billion to
acquire rival aircraft manufacturer McDonnell Douglas Corp1995
Trading on the New York Stock Exchange reaches a record 652.8 million shares,
topping the old mark of 608.2 million shares set on 20 October 20, 1987.
The total includes 24.3 million shares of K-Mart, which close at their low
of thirteen years. 1994 John Bruton becomes Ireland's
premier 1993 GATT Uruguay Round completed 1993 British premier Major and Irish premier Reynolds
sign Downing Street Declaration concerning Northern Ireland self determination
1993 Haitian premier Robert Malval resigns 1990 More than 400 American Roman Catholic theologians
charged that the Vatican had been throttling church reforms and imposing
"an excessive Roman centralization. They contended that the Vatican
had undercut a greater role for women, slowed the ecumenical drive for Christian
unity and undermined the collegial functioning of national conferences of
bishops.1989 A popular uprising began that resulted
in the downfall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. 1988
Father Alvaro Leonel Ramazzini Imeri is appointed bishop of San
Marcos, Guatemala. He would be ordained a bishop on 06 January 1989. He
was born in Guatemala City on 16 June 1947 and ordained a priest on 27 June
1971.

^1978 US to recognize Communist China, dump Taiwan.
President Jimmy Carter states that
as of January 1, 1979, the United States will recognize the communist
People's Republic of China (PRC) and sever relations with Taiwan.
Following Mao Zedong's successful
revolution in China in 1949, the United States steadfastly refused
to recognize the new communist regime. Instead, America continued
to recognize and supply the Nationalist Chinese government that had
been established by Chiang Kai-shek on the island of Taiwan. In 1950,
during the Korean War, US and PRC armed forces clashed. During the
1960s, the United States was angered by PRC support and aid to North
Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
By the 1970s, however, a new set of circumstances existed. From the
US viewpoint, closer relations with the PRC would bring economic and
political benefits. Economically, American businessmen were eager
to try and exploit the huge Chinese market. Politically, US policymakers
believed that they could play the "China card"-using closer diplomatic
relations with the PRC to pressure the Soviets into becoming more
malleable on a variety of issues, including arms agreements. The PRC
also had come to desire better relations with its old enemy. It sought
the large increase in trade with the United States that would result
from normalized relations, and particularly looked forward to the
technology it might obtain from America. The PRC was also looking
for allies. A military showdown with its former ally, Vietnam, was
in the making and Vietnam had a mutual support treaty with the Soviets.
Carter's announcement that diplomatic
ties would be severed with Taiwan (which the PRC insisted on) angered
many in Congress. The Taiwan Relations Act was quickly passed in retaliation.
It gave Taiwan nearly the same status as any other nation recognized
by the United States and also mandated that arms sales continue to
the Nationalist government. In place of the US embassy in Taiwan,
an "unofficial" representative, called the American Institute in Taiwan,
would continue to serve US interests in the country.

1976 Jamaica premier Manley wins elections

^
1973 Billionaire's kidnapped grandson found, minus one ear
On the 81st birthday of US billionaire
J. Paul Getty, his grandson Jean Paul Getty III is found alive in
southern Italy five months after his kidnapping. Getty, who was named
the richest man in the world in 1957, had initially refused to pay
his grandson's 3.2-million dollar ransom, and only cooperated after
the boy's severed right ear was sent to a newspaper in Rome. Born
in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on 15 December 1892, Getty inherited a
small oil company from his father, and through his autocratic rule
and skillful manipulation of the stock market shaped Getty Oil into
a massive empire. By 1968, Getty's fortune exceeded a billion dollars.
However, the world's wealthiest man did not enjoy the ideal life.
Getty is remembered as an eccentric billionaire art collector who
married and divorced five times, and had serious relationship problems
with most of his five sons. In the final twenty-five years of his
life, Getty lived near London, England, in an estate surrounded by
double barbed-wire fences and protected by plainclothes guards and
over twenty German shepherd attack dogs. Getty was also notorious
for his miserliness--his installation of a payphone for guests in
his English mansion is a famous example. Three years after failing
to pay his grandson's ransom in a timely manner, J. Paul Getty dies
at the age of eighty-three on 06 June 1976.

1973 American Psychiatric Assn declares homosexuality is
not mental illness 1972 The Commonwealth of Australia
orders equal pay for women.

^
1969 More US troops to withdraw from Vietnam.
President Richard Nixon announces that
50'000 additional US troops will be pulled out of South Vietnam by
April 15, 1970. This was the third reduction since the June Midway
conference, when Nixon announced his Vietnamization program.
Under the Vietnamization program, the
South Vietnamese forces would receive intensified training and new
equipment so they could gradually assume overall responsibility for
the war. Concurrent with this effort, Nixon announced that he would
begin to bring US troops home. This third increment would bring the
total reductions to 115'000. By January 1972, there were only around
70'000 US soldiers left in South Vietnam.
Noting the steady withdrawal of American forces, the North Vietnamese
decided to launch a massive invasion of South Vietnam in March 1972.
The South Vietnamese forces, supported by American advisers and US
airpower, reeled under the onslaught but ultimately prevailed, holding
on despite overwhelming odds. After much posturing and many lengthy
negotiations (with additional "motivation" contributed by Nixon's
bombing of North Vietnam in December 1972), National Security Advisor
Henry Kissinger and his North Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho,
hammered out a peace agreement. A cease-fire went into effect on 27
January 1973. The war was over
for the United States, but fighting soon resumed between North and
South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese held out for nearly two years,
but succumbed when the United States cut off all military support.
When the North Vietnamese launched a new offensive in March 1975,
South Vietnam fell in just 55 days.

1968 President Richard Nixon announces the third round
of Vietnam withdrawals. 1967 President Lyndon B.
Johnson signs the meat bill in the presence of Upton Sinclair the author
of the controversial book The Jungle. 1965
The United States bombs an industrial center near Haiphong Harbor, North
Vietnam. 1965 US bombers strike industrial targets in North Vietnam In the
first raid on a major North Vietnamese industrial target, US Air Force planes
destroy a thermal power plant at Uong Bi, l4 miles north of Haiphong. The
plant reportedly supplied about 15% of North Vietnam's total electric power
production. 1964 Canada adopts maple leaf flag
1961 Adolf Eichmann, the former Nazi official accused
of a major role in the extermination of 6 million Jews, is sentenced by
a Jerusalem court to be hanged.

^
1961 Organizer of Nazi extermination of Jews is sentenced to death In Tel Aviv, Israel, Adolf Eichmann,
the Nazi SS colonel who organized Adolf Hitler's "final solution of
the Jewish question," is condemned to death by a Jewish war crimes
tribunal. During World War II, Eichmann, a fanatical Nazi, was appointed
head of the Gestapo's Jewish section by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler,
and with horrifying efficiency carried out the Fuehrer's orders. From
1942 to 1945, Eichmann oversaw the systematic abuse of Jews in German-occupied
territories, organized their subsequent mass deportation to concentration
camps, and then carried out Hitler's "final solution to the Jewish
question"--the genocidal murder of millions of Jews in Nazi, primarily
in the gas chambers of the concentration camps. In 1945, Eichmann
was captured by US forces and imprisoned, but he managed to escape
before having to face the Nuremberg international war crimes tribunal.
Eichmann traveled under an assumed identity, and in 1950 arrived in
Argentina, which maintained lax immigration policies and was a safe
haven for many accused war criminals. After over a decade of pursuit,
Israeli agents located Eichmann living under a false name in Argentina,
and in May of 1960 kidnapped him near Buenos Aires. The agents circumvented
extradition procedures and transported him to Israel, where he was
judged by a special war crimes tribunal in two successive trials.
Known as the "human symbol" of the genocide of the Jewish people,
on December 15, 1961, Eichmann was condemned to death for the abuse
and murder of millions of Jews. On June 1, 1962, Eichmann was hanged.
His body was subsequently cremated and his ashes thrown into the sea.

1956 Emergency crisis in North Ireland proclaimed after
IRA strikes 1956 The Communist government of Poland
allows religious instruction in schools on a voluntary basis. 1954
Netherlands Antilles becomes co-equal part of Kingdom of Netherlands
1948 Former state department official Alger Hiss
is indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on charges of perjury. (He
was convicted in 1950.)1946 Vietnam leader Ho Chi
Minh sends a note to the new French Premier, Leon Blum, asking for peace
talks.

^
1945 MacArthur orders end of Shinto as Japanese state religion General Douglas MacArthur, in
his capacity as Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in the Pacific,
brings an end to Shintoism as Japan's established religion. The Shinto
system included the belief that the emperor, in this case Hirohito,
was divine. On September 2,
1945 aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, MacArthur signed the instrument
of Japanese surrender on behalf of the victorious Allies. Before the
economic and political reforms the Allies devised for Japan's future
could be enacted, however, the country had to be demilitarized. Step
one in the plan to reform Japan entailed the demobilization of Japan's
armed forces, and the return of all troops from abroad. Japan had
had a long history of its foreign policy being dominated by the military,
as evidenced by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye's failed attempts to
reform his government and being virtually pushed out of power by career
army officer Hideki Tojo. Step
two was the dismantling of Shintoism as the Japanese national religion.
Allied powers believed that serious democratic reforms, and a constitutional
form of government, could not be put into place as long as the Japanese
people looked to an emperor as their ultimate authority. Hirohito
was forced to renounce his divine status, and his powers were severely
limited--he was reduced to little more than a figurehead. And not
merely religion, but even compulsory courses on ethics--the power
to influence the Japanese population's traditional religious and moral
duties--were wrenched from state control as part of a larger decentralization
of all power.

1945 John Joseph O'Connor, born on 15 January 1920, is
ordained a priest of the archdiocese of Philadelphia. He would be appointed
on 24 April 1979 and ordained on 27 May 1979 a bishop for the US Military,
as an auxiliary to New York's Archbishop (later Cardinal) Terence James
Cooke [01 March 1921 – 06 Oct 1983] who was at the same time the Vicar
Apostolic of the US Military. On 06 May 1983 O'Connor would be appointed
and on 29 June 1983 installed as bishop of Scranton. On 26 January he would
be appointed and on 19 March 1984 installed as archbishop of New York. He
would be made a cardinal on 25 May 1985. Cardinal O'Connor would die on
03 May 2000.1944 US Congress gives General Eisenhower
his 5th star 1944 US troops lands on Mindoro 1944 The battle for Luzon begins. 1941
USS Swordfish becomes 1st US sub to sink a Japanese ship 1941 An AFL council adopts a no-strike policy in war industries,
which include automotive plants being converted to World War II military
production (domestic automobile manufacturing stops completely from 1941
to 1944). 1938 Washington sends its fourth note
to Berlin demanding amnesty for Jews.

^1896 IBM precursor saved from ruin by sale to Russia Herman Hollerith, inventor of
the tabulating machine used in the 1890 US census, was saved from
financial ruin when the Russian government contracts to buy his tabulating
machine for their census on this day in 1896. Hollerith had been trying
to sell the machines to businesses and other governments since the
devices were first used in the US census. However, a deep economic
depression from 1893-1894 had thwarted his efforts. After months of
providing free services and demonstrations to convince railroads and
other businesses to use his machine, Hollerith found his finances
were running dry. The Russian government's agreement to use the machine,
along with several other important contracts that came through at
the same time, saved the company. Hollerith's Tabulating Machine Company
later merged with several other companies to become IBM.

1874 Hawaiian King visits US President In Washington, D.C., David Kalakaua,
king of the Pacific island chain later known as the Hawaiian Islands,
is received by President Ulysses S. Grant at the White House. King
Kalakaua of the Sandwich Islands is the first reigning king to visit
the United States. Three days later, Congress receives King Kalakaua,
and a new treaty between the US and the Sandwich Islands is discussed.
During the second half of the nineteenth century, American investors
gradually increased their influence on the political and social life
of the Hawaiian Islands. In 1893, a group of American expatriates
supported by a division of US Marines dispose Queen Liliuokalani,
the last reigning monarch of Hawaii. One year later, the Republic
of Hawaii is established as a US protectorate and American Sanford
B. Dole is proclaimed president. Many in Congress oppose the formal
annexation of Hawaii, and it is not until 1898, and the use of the
naval base at Pearl Harbor during the Spanish-American War, that Hawaii's
strategic importance becomes evident and formal annexation is approved.
Two years later, Hawaii is organized into a formal US territory and
in 1959 enters the United States as the fiftieth state. .

1862 Nathan B. Forrest crosses the Tennessee River at Clifton
with 2500 men to raid the communications around Vicksburg, Mississippi.
1862 In New Orleans, Louisiana, Union Major General
Benjamin F. Butler turns his command over to Nathaniel Banks. The citizens
of New Orleans hold farewell parties for Butler, The Beast,
but only after he leaves. 1859 GR Kirchoff describes
chemical composition of Sun 1854 1st street-cleaning
machine in US 1st used in Philadelphia

^1791 The US Bill of Rights is ratified. Following ratification by the
state of Virginia, the first ten amendments to the US
Constitution, known as the Bill
of Rights, become law. On 25 September 1789, the first Congress
of the United States adopted twelve amendments to the Constitution,
and sent them to the states for ratification. The Bill of Rights were
designed to protect the basic rights of US citizens, guaranteeing
such freedoms as speech, religion, and a free press. In addition to
other earlier influences, the Bill of Rights was heavily drawn from
the Virginian Declaration of Rights, which was drafted by George Mason
in 1776. Mason, a native Virginian, was a lifelong champion of individual
liberties, and in 1787 attended the Constitutional Convention where
he advocated the creation of the Bill of Rights.
Virginia becomes the tenth state to approve ten of the twelve amendments,
thus giving the Bill of Rights the two-thirds majority of state ratification
necessary to make it legal. Of the two amendments not ratified, the
first concerns the population system of representation, while the
second prohibits laws regarding the payment of congressional members
to take effect until another election of these representatives has
intervened. The first of these two amendments is never ratified, while
the second is finally ratified over two hundred years later, in 1992.

^ Deaths
which occurred on a 15 December:2005 EdwardWilliam
Proxmire, dies of Alzheimer's disease, Democrat US Senator
(1957 - Jan 1989) from Wisconsin, born on 11 November 1915. He was first
elected to fill the remainder of the term vacated due to the death of the
infamous Senator Joseph
McCarthy [14 Nov 1908 – 02 May 1957]. — (051216)2005
At least 39 persons after a fire starts at 16:00 (08:00 UT) in
the Central Hospital in Liaoyuan City, Jilin province, China. Some 80 patients
and 10 staff members are injured. The fire is extinguished at 22:00 (14:00
UT). The hospital consists of four 4-story buildings forming a square; 5000
sq meters of it are burned out. The deaths and injuries are caused by burns,
smoke inhalation, and trauma from jumping out of the upper floors' windows.
Wang Mingwen, 43, a patient who was on the 3rd floor, escapes unhurt by
going down bedsheets which he tied to a water pipe; his wife Ni Shuping,
who was visiting him, looses her grip at the 2nd floor level and is seriously
injured by her fall to the ground. — (051216)2004 Alexis
Beebe, 8 months, strangled by her junky crib after her head got
stuck between the side rail and the headboard, at her family's home on the
north side of Columbus, Ohio. The crib had a couple of screws missing {and
the parents?).2004 Some 12 million bees, hosed down
by Las Vegas, Nevada, firefighters on the southbound ramp between Interstate
15 and US Highway 95, after the bees' 480 colonies spill out the truck that
was taking them to pollinate the almond crop in California, and which crashes
against the retaining wall just before evening traffic congestion hour,
resulting in a 4-hour closing of the ramp.2004 José
Cruz Morales, 47, buried by a rockslide started at 15:00 (21:00
UT) by a large boulder which falls from the edge into the 5-m-deep trench
where he was working on FM545 near County Road 414, north of Dallas, Texas,
to install a sewer main for its fast-growing Collin County suburb Melissa,
north of McKinney. 2004 Eight persons by terrorist bomb
at the western gate of the Shi'ite Imam Hussein Shrine in Karbala, Iraq.
The mullah Sheik Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalayee, main target of the attack, is
among the 40 wounded. He is a top aide to Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric,
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.2004 Mohammad Eyup,
a Turkish engineer, shot after being kidnapped the previous afternoon, together
with his driver and his interpreter (who are both released before dawn today),
by 12 armed men wearing military-style uniforms stopped their car as they
were traveling from a road construction project in Kunar province, Afghanistan,
to Jalalabad, where they had been staying.2004 At least 20
government soldiers and 6 rebels, in daylong fighting in western
Nepal, started when rebels ambush an army patrol near village Sirsakhola.2003 Adan Avalos, 37, after being shot and crashing the
sport-utility vehicle he was driving on Highway 120 in San Joaquin County,
Calfornia. He is reported missing and the wreck with his body is not found
until the morning of 26 December 2003, off the highway.2003
Ismael Humayed, Iraqi man, killed by gunfire in Samarra. 2003
Uthman al-Nuaiman, Umar Abd al-Wahhab, Usama al-Mashhadani, and Bilal Hindawi,
Iraqi men killed, in the Sunni neighborhood Adhamiyeh of northern Baghdad,
by US troops shooting at a mob rioting in reaction to the announcement of
the capture of Saddam Hussein. Seven demonstrators and some US soldiers
are wounded.2003 Eight Iraqi policemen and a suicide car bomber
driving a four-wheel drive taxi, in the Husainiyah district on the northern
outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq. 10 policemen and at least five civilians, including
a five-year-old girl, are wounded. 2002 Keith McCaw,
49, in the hottub of his mansion in Seattle. He was a billionaire listed
by Forbes magazine as the 445th-richest person in the world in 2002, tied
with brothers Bruce and John. His other brother, Craig McCaw, was listed
as the world's 168th richest person, worth $2.4 billion. They made their
fortune when AT&T bought their cellular-phone company McCaw Cellular
Communications for $11.5 billion in 1994. Their father, Elroy McCaw, made
a fortune owning radio and television stations, but the family estate was
declared bankrupt after he died of a stroke in 1969.2002
Four children and two adults, trampled by drunken elephants, in
Tinsukia, Assam. Of India's 10'000 wild elephants, 5500 are in Assam. They
are protected by law, but destruction of their habitat makes them emerge
from the forests by the hundreds in search of food and trample rice fields
and destroy granaries. Some of them have become alcoholics and, when they
invade villages they look for rice beer and local liquor.2001
Four Palestinians, including two boys aged 12 and 17, and Ahmed al-Bassuni,
28, a police officer whose jeep was hit, before dawn, when more
than a dozen Israeli tanks, accompanied by armored personnel carriers and
jeeps, enter Beit Hanoun at the northern tip of Gaza, and (they say) come
under fire and shoot back. Some 40 Palestinians are injured.2000
Derwin Brown, 46, [photo >] shot 11 times with
a large caliber TEC-9 semiautomatic pistol, shortly before midnight outside
of his home in Decatur, Georgia. He was the sheriff-elect of Dekalb County,
to be sworn in on December 18, and had just completed Sheriff academy training.
He won the August runoff election after a bitter campaign against corrupt
Sheriff Sidney Dorsey. Brown served in the DeKalb Police Department for
23 years where, most recently, he had risen to the rank of police captain.
Dorsey would be arrested on 30 November 2001 and put on trial in June 2002
for having, about a week after the election, ordered the killing of Brown
to DeKalb County jailer Patrick Cuffy, Paul Skyers, deputy David Ramsey,
and Melvin Walker, the last two being the trigger men, at whose trial Cuffy
would thus testify on 14 March 2002.2000 Nourreddin Abu Safi,
22, one of six Palestinians killed by Israelis in five separate shootings
this day. One more would die of his wounds the next day.2000
Elisabeth Mathild Otto, 29, jumping or falling out of open emergency
exit in Hewlettt-Packard corporate plane at 600 m over Sacramento. She was
a Dutch employee of HP Germany on temporary assignment in California. 1994: 48 inhabitants of Monrovia killed by Liberia militia.1991 At least 464 persons as an Egyptian-registered ferry
sinks in the Red Sea. 1986 150 killed during race riot in
Karachi
1971 Paul
Lévy, mathematician.
1967 34 die as Silver Bay bridge (Oh-WV) collapses during afternoon
rush hour, into the Ohio River. Dozens of cars fall into the icy water.
Many more people are injured. 1966 Walt
Disney, animator, 65, goes into suspended animation. He was
born on 05 December 1901. 1965 Some 10'000 by 3rd cyclone
of year at mouths of Ganges River, Bangladesh 1958
Wolfgang
Pauli, mathematician.

^1947 Arthur Machen, 84, (pseudonym
of Arthur Llewellyn Jones), Welsh novelist and essayist, a forerunner
of 20th-century Gothic science fiction. Besides the online works cited
below, he wrote The Bowmen and Other Legends of War (1915),
The Terror (1917), Far Off Things (1922), Things
Near and Far (1923). Machen also translated Casanova's Memoirs
(12 vol., 1930).
MACHEN ONLINE: The
Great God Pan and the Inmost Light (!894),The
Hill of Dreams (1907; autobiographical, evokes ancient Roman
forts and Welsh mysteries)

^1939 Day 16 of Winter War: USSR aggression against
Finland. [Talvisodan 16. päivä]
More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.
Finnish offensive in the Ladoga Karelia sector.

Eastern Isthmus: at Taipale, a Russian division launches a tank-supported
offensive at 08:30. The advance is halted at Kirvesmäki.

The fighting at Terenttilä continues into the second day.

Central Isthmus: two Finnish companies launch a counterattack
at Summa, but fail to get further than a few kilometres.

Ladoga Karelia: troops of the 13th Division under the command
of Colonel Hannuksela launch an offensive towards Ruhtinaanmäki.

At Uomaa, a Finnish patrol rescues two wounded men who had survived
in a tent for 12 days in territory overrun by the enemy.

Listeners are reminded that today is the last recommended day
for sending Christmas packages to the troops at the front.

Despite the war, Finland is honoring the repayment schedule for
its First World War debt to the USA.

1921 Königsberger,
mathematician.1915 Enoch Wood Perry, US artist born
in 1831. 1914 Bernardus Johannes Bloomers, Dutch
artist born on 30 January 1845.1904 Ottokar Walter,
Austrian artist born on 30 October 1853. 1899 Alberto Pasini
Italian painter, specialized in Orientalism,
born on 02 September 1826. — more
with links to images.1890 Chief Sitting Bull of the Sioux
and 11 other tribe members, killed in Grand River, S.D., by US
agents heading Amerindian auxiliaries. 1889 Ferdinand II
A F A, 73, king of Portugal.

^1864 Rebs and Yanks as Battle of Nashville begins.
The once powerful Confederate Army
of Tennessee is nearly destroyed when a Union army commanded by General
George Thomas swarms over the Rebel trenches around Nashville. This
was the sad finale in a disastrous year for the General John Bell
Hood's Confederates. The Rebels lost a long summer campaign for Atlanta
in September when Hood abandoned the city to the army of William T.
Sherman. Hood then took his diminished force north into Tennessee.
He hoped to draw Sherman out of the deep South, but Sherman had enough
troops to split his force and send part of it to chase Hood into Tennessee.
In November, Sherman took the remainder of his army on his march across
Georgia. On 30 November Hood attacked the troops of General John Schofield
at Franklin, Tennessee. The Confederates suffered heavy casualties
and much of the army's leadership structure was destroyed: twelve
generals were killed or wounded along with 60 regimental leaders.
When Schofield moved north to Nashville to join Thomas, Hood followed
him and dug his army in outside of Nashville's formidable defenses.
Thomas saw his chance to deal
a decisive blow to Hood. More than 50'000 Yankees faced a Rebel force
that now totaled less than 20'000. Historians have long questioned
why Hood even approached the strongly fortified city with the odds
so stacked against him. Early in the morning of 15 December, Thomas
sent a force under General James Steedman against the Confederates'
right flank. The Union troops overran the Confederate trenches and
drove the Rebels back more than a mile. The short December day halted
the fighting, but Thomas struck again on 16 December. This time, the
entire Confederate line gave way and sent Hood's men from the field
in a total rout. Only General Stephen Lee's valiant rear-guard action
prevented total destruction of the Confederate army.
More than 6000 Rebels were killed or wounded and 3000 Yankees lost
their lives. Hood and his damaged army retreated to Mississippi, the
Army of Tennessee no longer a viable offensive fighting force.

1849 Francoeur,
mathematician.
1838 Léger,
mathematician. 1826 William Browser, revolted slave,
executed in NYC.1816 Charles Stanhope, a British
earl. He invented two early mechanical calculators, as well as a printing
press, a microscope lens, and various other scientific devices. He argued
for the democratization of Parliament and criticized the slave trade in
British colonies. 1805 Dirk Thierry (or Théodore)
Langendyk, Dutch artist born on 08 March 1748.1713
cavaliere Carlo Maratti (or Maratta), Italian painter born on 15
May 1625.  MORE
ON MARATTI AT ART 4 DECEMBERwith links to images.1675 (burial) Jan Vermeervan Delft, great Dutch painter who was born shortly before
his 31 October 1632 baptism.  MORE
ON VERMEER AT ART 4 DECEMBERwith links to many images.1515 Alfonso
de Albuquerque, viceroy of Portuguese Indies.1230
Ottokar I, king of Bohemia (1197-1230)

1952 Hwang
Woo-Suk (surname first), fraudulent South Korean biomedical
scientist and professor of Theriogenology and Biotechnology at Seoul National
University, who rose to fame after claiming a series of remarkable breakthroughs
in the field of stem cell research which, in 2005, were proved to have been
faked. — (051224)1952 Encyclical Orientales
Ecclesias in published by Pope Pius XII.1944
Hizbu'allah (Armed forces for Allah) forms.1937 Donald
Goines “Al C. Clark”, US writer who died in 1974.
He was a career criminal and addict who wrote his first two novels in prison.
— (051214)

--^1936 The Road to Wigan Pier goes to publisher.
Writer George
Orwell [1903 – 21 Jan 1950] delivers his manuscript for
his book The Road to Wigan Pier, which chronicles the difficult
life of the unemployed in northern England. Then he promptly sets
off for the civil war in Spain.
George Orwell was the nom de plume for Eric Blair, who was born in
India. The son of a British civil servant, Orwell attended school
in London and won a scholarship to the elite prep school Eton, where
most students came from wealthy upper-class backgrounds, unlike Orwell.
Rather than going to college like most of his classmates, Orwell joined
the Indian Imperial Police and went to work in Burma in 1922. During
his five years there, he developed a severe sense of class guilt,
until, in 1927, he elected not to return to Burma while in England
on a holiday. Orwell, choosing
to immerse himself in the experiences of the urban poor, went to Paris,
where he worked menial jobs, and later spent time in England as a
tramp. He published Down and Out in Paris and London in 1933,
based on his observations of the poorer classes, and The Road
to Wigan Pier in 1937. Meanwhile, he had published his first
novel, Burmese Days, in 1934.
Orwell became increasingly liberal in his views, though he never committed
himself to any specific political party. Although he fought with the
Republicans in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, he later fled the
country as communism gained an upper hand. His barnyard fable, Animal
Farm (1945: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal
than others"), shows how the noble ideals of egalitarian economies
can easy be distorted. The book brought him his first taste of critical
and financial success. Orwell's last novel, Nineteen Eighty-four,
brought him lasting fame with its grim vision of a future where all
citizens are watched constantly and language is twisted to aid in
oppression. Orwell died of tuberculosis.

0037 Claudius Augustus Germanicus
Nero 5th Roman emperor (54-68); did not fiddle while
Rome burned His name has become
proverbial for a human monster. He was cruel, demented, egotistical,
barbaric, and obsessed with power.
Nero was to be the last of the family of Julius Caesar to be emperor
of Rome. He came to the throne at the age of 16, after his mother
Agrippina poisoned her husband, the emperor Claudius.
During his early reign he was guided by the philosopher Seneca and
Burius, the commander of his guard. Roman rule spread from Britain
to Armenia, but Nero was more concerned with promoting his own power
than the might of Rome. To secure his own power he had Claudius' son
poisoned and his own mother Agrippina murdered.
The last years of his rule were years of terror and self- indulgence.
When a conspiracy against him failed, Nero became even more repressive.
Even his teacher and advisor Seneca was forced to commit suicide.
Nero thought of himself as a
grand actor on the world's stage. He had a passion for popular applause
and frequently performed for his subjects. He played the lyre, sang
odes at supper, drove chariots in the circus, was a mimic on the stage,
and even forced Senators and government leaders to act in dramas with
him. When Rome burned in 64
A.D., Nero was so fascinated with the fire and the opportunity it
provided to rebuild the city that many suspected him of setting the
blaze. To direct blame away from himself, Nero blamed the fire on
the Christians. After all, didn't the Christians despise the Roman
gods and weren't they loyal to a higher king than Caesar? Nero had
some Christians crucified; others were sewn up in skins of wild beasts
and thrown to dogs in the arena.
At one of Nero's garden parties in the imperial gardens on Vatican
hill, Christians were covered with pitch, oil, or resin and nailed
to posts of pine. They were lighted and burned as human torches while
Nero acted as a charioteer at his party. Peter and possibly Paul were
also martyred in Rome during the first of the major Roman persecutions
of Christians. As Nero's cruelties
increased, he lost control of his government. The armies of Gaul and
Spain revolted, and the Roman guard deserted. Nero committed suicide
at the age of 32.

Thoughts for the day:
If reality wants to get in touch with me, it knows where I am.{even though I don't}If reality knows where I am, I'm moving somewhere else.
Never mind me, does reality know where Osama bin Laden is?
Reality virtually doesn't exist.
Computers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your privacy.”
“More effective than a pointing finger
or a closed fist ,
is a helping hand .
True education makes for inequality; that of individuality, success, talent,
progress of the world.  after Felix Emmanuel Schelling,
US educator and scholar [1858-1945].No one would be above average if there was no one below
average.
The average person is either above average or, more likely, below average.
{more precisely: one standard deviation from average}